will
|
I guess I have not been hanging on different parts of the forum where perpetual or obsessive seeming tube rolling is happening. I never even liked the phrase "tube rolling," making it sound casual and sort of perpetual, not the way I see it, more an amazing tuning tool for me. But why wouldn't it be a big topic here since many of us love Decware tube amps in part for the tune-ability.
John, I would say that tube changes are like anything else, more obvious in more resolving systems.... I get that a bad setup can contribute to the desire to tune with tubes when the main problems are elsewhere, trying to make a rough setup better. But this does not mean tube tuning is necessarily a bad way to balance and enhance (to a point) room or system issues if that is one's choice.
Obviously for the deepest and most complete presentation, more than just tubes need to be addressed... But this does not mean tubes aren't good tuning tools. I can say absolutely that here they are.
I guess I change tubes pretty often now that my system is more refined and complete, but I went for many years with the same basic tubes, and though some had to be replaced, tried hard to keep the sound balance the same since it was my reference base for modifications. It was a tube set I knew well after years of exploring tubes to get there, and settling on the set's types used, individual tubes within the types, and the combined sonic complexity of the whole. So I knew it gave me all I love in the musical balances in pretty complete and neutral ways, highly engaging, and revealing parts changes well... I would regularly cross check modification changes I settled on, using tube changes to get variations on this sound, musically pushing it in different directions, just to be sure I was staying on track with balances... but mostly I used my base set for years.
Now though, it is fun to play with finding different variants of the beauty to help me hear/feel the music better. I have a number of baseline tubes type-wise that I prefer, and some of these I change more, and others less. They all matter in notable ways, but for each position tube type choices have gotten pretty narrow for my favorite balances. And some, like my VRs, tend to stay very close to the same. But even so, I can make, to me, pretty profound changes within this narrowed down window to shake things up. Different variations of beautiful can be a really nice wakeup to the senses for me, taking me into different layers of the musical experience.
And I know the general feel of each of the tubes I have (a lot of them after so many years of exploring this or that tube trail of discovery), so my tube changes happen fast. Like I want to pull a little more mid bass edge without losing bass complexity... or it feels like one tube position adjustment might open the whole set up a bit and articulate edges and space of the whole... or a very neutral tube with a touch more power and great dynamics... or I might want more complexity and less focus... or less forcefulness with more dynamic complexity.... more or less open warmth....more or less extension... more or less fine detail and space...soften the whole without detail or articulation or speed loss, but making the set more nuanced, more complex textures and harmonics, less concentrated... and on and on in the vast potential for tuning with these very complex things, tubes.
Then, with luck, the real magic. Having a number of tubes, amazing new information can be found, sonically close shifts where a little different combinations can reveal something amazing and unexpected. Finally, the combination of all our tubes defines our particular tube sound. And how they influence each other carries the basic sonic values of the given tube type to the rest, but the rest also influence that tube type...and each individual tube within the type is generally family, but also pretty distinct sonically... Even the same very high quality tube from the same factory, same construction, etc, but a few years apart, can be similar, but different enough to choose one.
Take some common inputs for Decware amps, ECC88, ECC189, E88CC, E188CC, PCC88, PCC189, all different, but close electronically, and in many ways, sonically. But each has characteristic influence on sound that makes one or another "better" in a given setting. And each individual tube within these tube types are usually different enough that we can often identify this clearly once we get to know tubes. But some cross each others lines, so not cut and dried... likely pointing to why some NOS tubes are so sought after... they rise up high for the type, sort of going beyond type. But as much, this points to tube types within a relatively close range being useful in tube tuning, AND each tube within a type will influence the sound in its own ways.
Finally though, if using good tubes in a resolving system, whatever variations a particular tube of a particular type brings to the sound is real. And the combination of how they influence one another is calculable with experience. But the final experience is the combination of how they influence each other, often showing new things and new beauty that would be difficult to calculate. Especially when that combination is extraordinarily captivating, it teaches us about the potential for tubes to help us get into the deeper and more compelling magic we sometimes find... This part is it beyond my abilities to fully anticipate, so really fun to discover when it shows up.
So for me, no doubt that tubes have a pretty big effect within realistic musical limits. They all have to sound good to me, the "better" ones for me, revealing decent balances in extension that do not muddy the bottom or harden the top, macro and micro detail and micro and macro dynamics, plenty of the very fine detail qualities in spacial information/decays/ambience, and with this finer information, textures and harmonic complexity, "shimmer" and air.... etc etc.... These are all things each tube tends to do differently. And for me, with so many tubes, 5 positions in the Torii, 3 positions in the CSP3, and one in the Zrock, that is a lot of tubes to utilize in seeking complex and nuanced refinements and synergy toward the particular flavor of presentation I am loving at the time. With all those tubes I can tune about any musical parameter within useful limits. And having a lot of them allows complex variations for incredibly fine tuned music if one wants to explore that.
That said, a lot of tube positions aren't needed to prove this process has meaning in Steve's components. Even one tube in a system can be really powerful for tuning. Like a range of 12AU7s and variants in the ZRock2, some tubes are more similar, but it seems many more good NOS tubes from different makers and times offer us a lot of sonic variation. Depending the balances from all else in the system, this one tube can be quite powerful for system tuning. If someone who knows tubes were to pick a nice variety of say ten 12AU7 variants, and setting the ZRock2 gain for each at unity or a touch above (so that the Zrock circuit is barely "on"), this alone can tune the whole system if it is resolving and balanced, and would very likely change any conceptual ideas about tube changes not being a real tool. With a nice selection of tube variants, and ZRock2 only, it would shock me if anyone with a resolving system would not find one, or two to three of the ten that just make that system/room more right, make the music more real feeling across recordings.... just one tube in a component that uses tubes for sound tuning, like Decware, can be meaningful for slotting in a more complete sound for a system/room, and for us.
And as Lon suggested, as a system changes, changing tubes can help get the most from those refinements. Equally, adjusting other things in the system can prove/enhance a tube compliment, or open doors to playing with tubes to refine that set to better utilize the improvements of the new component, or cable, or whatever. In this example of a ZRock2, other system changes could make one prefer some of the 12AU7 variants that were originally rejected, and/or find some of the original preferences to potentially be off in some ways.
It is awesome though when the tubes one has are really satisfying. But especially if they are stock, and therefore somewhat limited due to needs for a maker to have a lot of tubes of a type, and not have them be extraordinarily costly unless as an upgrade, I would suggest that loving the stock set does not mean one couldn't love variations on that set better from introducing the right NOS tubes or really nice new tubes.
Anyway, back to the "tubes don't matter so much" video John. I feel sure in your system/room, and with your listening discernment, you would hear tube changes better than that video example implied. Maybe his amp is not as revealing of tube changes as ours, or room issues, or even the particular tubes he chose "to make his point," or who knows what. But with my Decware, way aside from minor volume shifts with tube changes, you can adjust about any kind of musical parameter you want with tubes, at least within reasonable limits. Tube adjusting can be a supple and powerful tool for potentially very complex refinement in finding all the things we crave for a more "real" presentation... and in my case, across most recordings... so everything needs to be pretty right.
|
Pages: 
300B Tubes (Read 17671 times)
